Welcome to Week Five of the Stormy
Battle article series, which takes a look at the previews revealed so
far for Set 28 Ultimate Ninja Storm 3, and gives a brief review of
the cards and possible uses in the upcoming Format once Set 28
becomes legal. This week, we look over an array of different cards,
ranging from Byakugan, Cloud Ninjas, The Avenger himself, and the
flagship card of the set, Naruto Uzumaki (9 Tails Chakra).

Hinata Hyuga and Strength
of Conviction

When Burst was first
introduced, it was a Lightning keyword, found on Ninjas who had a
tendency to display a sudden burst of power when they battled. In Set
27, Burst was shifted towards Water Ninjas, paired onto cards that
could give you the top card of your Deck if it was a revealed and of
a certain card type. In Set 28, we see that Burst has shifted again
over to Earth. This makes sense in a way, as Burst always felt like a
very Taijutsu related keyword, and the majority of Taijustu Ninjas
are either Lightning or Earth.

Hinata herself has rather
poor stats for a Turn 2 Ninja, but this is easily covered by the dual
combination of not only Burst, but also her own effect text. The
effect itself is very reminiscent of one of my favorite cards from
Set 15, 100% Hot Blooded. While you don't get the protection that
100% Hot Blooded offered, you still have a Valid source that places
coins on any Taijutsu Ninja that you put in play, including herself.
That means that even if you happen to Burst for 0, she still comes in
as a solid 3/2 4/1, which Are good stats for a Turn 2 Ninja. If your
curve contains a good lineup of Taijutsu Ninjas, Hinata as a perfect
pair with The Sage, who can put those coins to good use by turning
them into card draw. Although, there is a good reason to keep those
coins around, which I will discuss in the next set of previews below.

Strength of Conviction
somewhat reminds me of the card Seeing Through Distance, from Set 16.
When I first started reading the card, I initially thought it was
going to be some sort of throwback to it. I was mostly incorrect, as
the only thing they really share is Hinata as the artwork, and
looking at a set number of cards on the top of your Deck. Unlike
Seeing Through Distance, this card will always draw you a card, at
the cost of removing a coin from the Mission. Seeing as it is only
Permanent 3, this seemed rather terrible, since you must remove a
coin at the start of your turn as well. What redeemed this card was
it's timing, which is either Mission Phase, meaning that you can
activate it both on your turn and your opponent's. This means that at
it's worst, it is a draw 2 over two turns, the first of which
allowing you to rearrange your top 3, and the next rearranging the
top 2 again. Luckily, Earth has a way to abuse this card more than
that, in the form of Hinata Hyuga [Will to Protect], and Zetsu
[Infectious Spores], both Ninjas from Set 25. With those, you are
able to provide a steady stream of coins on the mission, allowing you
to draw more cards over the course of the next however many turns you
can keep the card active. Paired with a card like Messengers, you can
move a coin from Messengers to Strength of Conviction, allowing you
to draw a card for the removal of a coin on Messengers, and then use
the coin on Strength of Conviction to draw again, and you can do this
every Mission Phase, your's or your opponent's. The Permanent Earth
Stall Deck has always been a pet favorite of Mull to Four's crew, so
we love seeing more support for it. If only there was a good way to
protect your Missions from removal and Negation, the deck could wind
up becoming very competitive, and annoying.

Neji Hyuga and 8 Trigrams
64 Palms

Neji's effect name is refering to the Edo Period Samurai

Continuing
with the theme of Earth receiving Burst, as well as doing things with
+1/+1 coins, Neji Hyuga turns all of those +1/+1 coins into +2/+1
coins. I would make a joke about about his effect name, but we here
at Mull to Four find jokes that dwell on racism and derogatory terms
to be not nearly funny enough to bother using. As for the effect, it
makes quite a huge difference in the long run. A single additional
power can be the difference between a draw or a Victory, of having to
commit to playing a Jutsu to win a Battle over being able to react to
what your opponent plays instead. A single coin on Neji makes him an
8/2, not to mention whatever his initial Burst bonus will be. If you
opponent was focused on forming a large Team to be able to Attack
every turn, you can now swarm with single Ninjas, pressing the
advantage. Not to mention that Neji makes Tsukado [Carrier of
Vengeance] absolutely ridiculous as a Head Ninja.

8
Trigrams 64 Palms received a lot of positive reception on Facebook as
well as the forums. In the wake of such narrow user specific Jutsu
that just weren't up to par, we received a Jutsu that, while it had a
requirement, it was one that was mostly easy to fulfill, and had a
powerful effect that merited it. Flipping coins can always backfire
pretty easily, especially when it comes to “Flip until you get
tails” effects. There is just as much chance that you get a Tails
on the first flip and are suddenly doing nothing as there is that you
continue flipping. Luckily, this card covers itself in that you are
always guaranteed at least 1 Damage in additional to whatever you
flip. That means this card is a 100% chance for 1 Damage, and a 50%
for 2 Damage, which you get to divide among any of the Ninjas
opposing its user. A 50% chance for removal is always good, and if
you are playing this card and aren't responded to, you can spread the
Damage in hopes of scoring an Outstanding Victory. I can see this
card getting played quite a bit in Earth decks that aren't completely
committed to the Self Mill Revitalize plan.

Rock
Lee and Eight Inner Gates

The
combination of Burst and Flashpoint is an interesting one, because
the latter allows you to retrigger the former. Paired with a put in
play trigger that pumps another of your Ninjas as well, it's likely
you can see a dramatic surge of power on your side of the board when
he comes into play. And if you happen to hit a low Entrance cost
card on Burst, you can always Flashpoint him out of play in order to
try again next turn, but you still get to keep the extra bonus on the
other Ninja. A repeatable pump on a Ninja who has the ability to pump
his own power is nice, and there is a lot of design space that can be
explored with this combination of keywords. Hopefully we'll see more
interesting combinations in the future, though none of the others
really pair as well as these two keywords do.

Eight
Inner Gates is one of those cards that I really just can't get
behind. The flavor of the card is interesting at least, you mill your
deck to break through the different gates, getting a bonus at 3, 6,
or 8. The problem with this card is how easily it can just hit a
Jutsu on even the second card. The bonus for burning away your deck
is just too great to merit using it effectively. There is no possible
way you would be able to set up the 6 or 8 effects beforehand,
meaning that you leave it to luck to hit. And then being a Rare on
top of all of this, especially compared to other cards that were
common and leaps and bounds better in every way (such as the next
card), this card just doesn't get my approval for anything.
Flavorful, yes, playable, no.

Cee
and Hirudora

That's not how you spell Broken

Cee
is similar to Rock Lee in that he is a Burst and Flashpoint Ninja
with a useful put in play trigger. Turn three with solid Support in
both Healthy and Injured, as well as an assortment of relevant
keywords and combat attributes, he does a whole lot. His effect is
similar to Shima [Toad Cook], in that he heals a Ninja and is the
same slot as Ma Toad. Burst means that he can be a large and sudden
boost to any Team's Power, and Flashpoint allows you to repeat his
heal effect if you find need for it. While nothing too amazing, he
still is a nice card that can fill multiple roles and themes.

Hirudora
is a prime example of a card that does way too much for its rarity.
In any other set, this card would have absolutely been a Super Rare
without another question asked. Requiring no specific Symbols in the
cost, being unable to be negated, and while having a specific user,
there is a Turn 0 version of said Ninja who sees play in threes in a
lot of Lightning Decks. The effect itself is disastrously potent,
draining all Jutsu from both players, and allowing a full on free
reign snipe of any of your opponent's Ninjas without having to
actually target. No Ninja is safe from this card's effect, and even
if no Jutsu are discarded, you get 1 Damage to put wherever you want.
The blowout potential of this card is off the charts, and I fully
expect to see this abused with The Sage as soon as the set becomes
legal. This set may have a lot of poor cards overall, but the good
cards may be too good.

Darui
and Gale Style: Black Hunting

Does this make Darui a cannibal?

Darui
is similar to his previous version from Set 25 Kage Summit, in that
he taxes your opponent for what they do. Rather than adding a Chakra
cost to all of their activated effects though, he makes the first
Jutsu they play every turn cost an extra X, where X is the number of
Symbols on the Jutsu. The Symbols it refers to is the element symbols
in the upper right corner of the card, so on average, he makes the
first Jutsu cost an extra 1 Chakra. Sometimes, you get the rare
occasion that he will make a Jutsu cost 2 extra, and the very rare
occasion of 3. Overall, for a 5 Drop, he isn't going to impact your
opponent too much. Being dual element himself is nice at least, and
he actually has Weapon now instead of Ninjutsu like before. Compared
to most other 5 drops though, he doesn't do enough to see play over
them in either element.

Gale
Style: Black Hunting is like a Darui specific super Paper Bomb, which
means that it is much too narrow to see play. Had this card been
usable by anyone and injured for Lighting (1), and then had Expert
[Darui] for the extra Damage after showdown, it still would be
unlikely to see play. I can't even say “Well, it's just a common
anyways, so it doesn't have to be good”, because Hirudora is a
common too, and is also a single user, and is just overall better in
every way than this card. What a weird set.

The
4th Raikage and Lightning Speed

"If anyone has been my keywords, please return them to the Cloud Village, thank you."

This
week has really been a hit or miss sort of week. We have The 4th
Raikage, who, despite being Rare, and being a 6 Drop, has a really
mediocre feeling effect. He could have easily had the Burst and
Flashpoint combo in order to at least help abuse his effect, and the
more I look at this card, the more I feel like it seriously is just
actually missing both of those effects by some error. At least with
those two effects, he would be playable in a sense. As he is now, he
is a very poor comparison to the other 6 drops we've seen so far.

The
card that was paired with the Raikage was Lightning Speed, which only
made me feel like the Raikage card was missing keywords even more.
As for the card itself, it can be particularly devastating. A pure
mixture of Electronic Scoreboard's power to force a Block, The Eight
Inner Gates tripling of the target's Combat value, and Complete
Victory's discarding all opposing Ninjas if you win an Outstanding
Victory by 8 or more, the card does a whole lot by itself, under the
only requirement being that you use it on a Flashpoint or Burst
Ninja. The fact that the target can bring Back Ninja with it to
battle means that you are nearly guaranteed when all is said and done
to completely take out a single Team your opponent controls, provided
that you aren't assaulted by a horde of Jutsu. But then again, that's
what The Sage and Hirudora is there to cover. I'd actually want to
try this card out, even as a 1 of, just for the potential to
devastate a Team of annoying Ninjas.

Sasuke
Uchiha and Flame Control Sword

"It's genetic."

Now
-this- is Pod Racing! Sasuke is likely one of the best cards in the
set, despite only being a Rare, and likely one of the best Sasuke in
format that isn't [Solo Attitude]. Gone are the days of Water Sasuke,
he has fully embraced his Fire side, as well as receiving Lightning
as well. His stats are solid for his turn marker, and his effects are
even better. A Valid ability that reduces all Jutsu costs of Jutsu he
uses by 1 Fire Chakra is insane, especially considering all of the
good Fire Jutsu we currently have to use. Keep in mind, that if he
uses a Fire Jutsu with a cost of only 1 Fire, that Jutsu is Free.
Subdue and Backstab can be played even if you have no Chakra, which
can be a nice little surprise for your opponent if they're playing
Water or Lightning and try to go for an Alliance of Evil or
Exhaustion to clear your Chakra. The amount of weight that he takes
off on your resources can add up very quickly, and where 3 Chakra
would only be enough for 1 Jutsu usually, you now are able to likely
have a backup response ready as well. His second effect, while not
Valid, is still extremely powerful as well, especially when coupled
with his first effect. Half of a Jiraiya (Sage Mode) effect, all the
numbers found in the effect text of Jutsu he plays are increased by
1. a 1 Damage Jutsu becomes 2 Damage. A Jutsu that states to do
something to 1 Ninja becomes 2 Ninja, and so on. Taking a quick look
at the Block Legal Fire Jutsu, I have assembled a small list of the
best overall Jutsu to abuse with this Sasuke (This list is not in any
particular order):

Mangekyou
Sharingan (Set 22: Weapons of War): For 1 Fire Chakra, you can snipe
a Ninja for 3 Damage, or your opponent can give you 2 Battle Rewards.
Likely, this means that you're going to be winning 2 Battle Rewards
for 1 Chakra. Not bad at all, but unless that means you're going to
win off of it, you can likely do better, since you're going to want
to effect their board as much as possible.

Lightning
Beast Running Jutsu (Set 23: Invasion): 1 Fire Chakra gives us a 4/4
Ninja into the Team, which is pretty good, but the best part comes
when that Jutsu Ninja moves to Chakra at the end of the turn. Give 1
Damage to 1 Ninja becomes 2 Damage to 2 Ninjas, allowing you snipe
away their best two Ninja that you currently have in play. And that's
all for 1 Chakra.

Mangekyou
Sharingan (Set 24: Sage's Legacy): If you're noticing the pattern
here, 1 Fire Chakra is the cost, and the effect is particularly
potent. 2 Damage to an opposing Ninja, and then due to that Ninja
being discarded from the Damage, you get to do 2 more Damage to 2
more Ninjas your opponent controls. That's a total of 3 Ninjas for 1
Fire Chakra. This is likely the go to option if you're on the Sasuke
(Semi-Sage Mode), plan.

Simulstrike
(Set 26: Avenger's Wrath): 1 of any Chakra, and you are going to end
up killing both the target and your Sasuke. This may seem like a bad
play, but you're going to draw 2 cards for each Ninja that got
discarded, meaning that you are getting to draw +4 cards. If you
happen to have another Sasuke in your hand to deploy on the next
turn, this might not be a bad play, seeing as your cashing in 1 card
in hand and a Ninja to get rid of their Ninja and then go +3 in hand.

Flame
Control Sword plays particularly well with the new Sasuke from this
set, reducing it's cost to 1 Fire and 1 Lightning Chakra, and making
it a full Team Wipe. In practice, it sounds great, but when you
consider that for 1 Fire alone, you can Set 24 Mangekyou Sharingan
and do the same thing if you choose, or spread those extra 2 Ninja
kills across other Teams or onto a pesky Stand-By Ninja your opponent
happens to control. I would have added it to the list above, but I
wanted to just talk about it by itself here. When rotation hits, this
will likely be the partner card for this set's Sasuke, but for now,
it will have to sit aside for the superior choices from previous
sets.

Heroic
Spirit and Naruto Uzumaki (9 Tails Cloak)

*Insert Tap it Joke Here*

Heroic
Spirit was said to be part of a cycle of Missions according to
Facebook, which means that we're likely going to see a Mission for
each of the new keywords that were introduced this Block. This one in
particular gives all of your Ninjas Burst, which is pretty cool,
especially if you're trying to abuse effects that deal with the top
card of your Deck, which Burst wants to do. In addition, every time
you apply a Burst of 2 or higher, you get to draw a card. An
important note here is that it says 'may' draw 1 card, meaning that
if you find some way of getting multiple burst triggers, or applying
the effect of Burst multiple times somehow, you get to draw a card
for each one. If there was a way to apply Burst to multiple Ninjas,
you could potentially be drawing a lot of cards over the three turns
you'll have access to this Mission. With rotation, the game will
hopefully allow for missions like that that don't give you an
immediate result to your hand in some way, which is what most
Missions currently are aimed to do. If it isn't drawing cards or
searching, it has to make a fast and immediate impact, or else it is
just too slow for the current format.

This
is it folks, the card everyone has been waiting for. After the
overall disappointment with Madara Uchiha, people's eyes turned to
the eventual reveal of this Naruto with bated breath. Did he stand up
to people's expectations, or did he fall short like our ancient
Uchiha friend did? The results were rather mixed, actually. A Turn 7
non-Reinforcement Ninja with stats that confused a lot of people'
especially considering how amped up Sage Mode Naruto's stats usually
are (All three current versions of Sage Mode Naruto are 7/3 8/2, one
of which gets a handful of coins on him when he comes into play if
you're been planning carefully), we are instead treated to a 6/1 9/0.
Those injured stats sure are nice though, but his Healthy stats are
worse than most Turn 5 Ninjas. I personally feel his effect more than
makes up for it. Many people were upset that it was a deploy effect,
and would have rather seen a put in play trigger, but you have to
keep in mind that Tailed Beast Transformation is coming out this set
as well, and would allow for a Turn 3 Naruto (9 Tails Chakra) to hit
the board and still get his trigger. The beauty of his effect though
actually comes from the late game. When he hits the field, every
Ninja other than himself is going to take 1 Damage. For every Ninja
your opponent controls that gets discarded by that effect, you are
going to win 1 Battle Reward. Played right, and doing your work prior
to Turn 7 to get a lot of your opponent's Ninjas injured, this can
win you the game by just deploying him. Pair him with Exaggeration (A
personal favorite card of Saul Pena, aka KlowdStr1fe), and you just completely win the
game on that turn, as you'll be dealing 2 Damage to every Ninja and
winning 2 Battle Rewards for each of your opponent's Ninjas that get
Discarded. Even if you didn't win a single Battle Reward all game,
they only need to have four Ninjas, because you'll win 8 Battle
Rewards from Naruto's effect, and then be able to Attack with Naruto
with no way for them to Block him for 2 more Battle Rewards.
Lightning Stall Exaggerated 9 Tails Cloak deck? Sounds fun to me. Had
he been a Reinforcement, I feel that he would have been even more
abusable, since you could Reinforce into him on Turn 7, apply his
effect, and then still be able to deploy a fresh Ninja that won't
have taken that 1 Damage from Naruto.

That's
it for this week's review of the previews. My apologizes for posting
this late, but I've been pretty busy lately and was pressed for time,
especially at night. Be sure to check back later on today when we
reveal our final exclusive preview for Set 28, Ultimate Ninja Storm
3, which happens to be a Super Rare Ninja who is Six Ninjas in one.
As always, be sure to like our Facebook Page, which will allow you to
keep track of when new articles are posted as well as get random
exclusive information from the crew on new and interesting things we
might run across, but isn't enough to post a whole article on.

Thanks for finally getting the article up guys, and great job. :) I have 2 questions for you today about my new best friend Sasuke lol, one slightly trollish question and one serious one. The first is played out in a scenario like this. Player A blocks with 2 teams 1 of which includes Susuke "Darkness Within". Player A proceeds to have Sasuke use "Role Reversal" and Player B does not respond. Player A then begins a new chain and activate "Body Flicker" Player B does not respond.What Happens form here? for reference body flickers text is "Requirements: Madara Uchiha or Tobi or Masked Man Target: 1 Ninja opposing the user Effect: Remove the target and the user from the game. Then, move the user to 1 of your Teams on the Battlefield in any position. Move the target to its original owner's Village, then injure it."On to the next question, would it not be wiser to simply run "Yasaka Magatama" with Sasuke? Both it and "Flame Control Sword" have the same end effect when used with this Sasuke, but Yasaka also has 2 other Users and only needs 2 Fire Chakra with him as opposed to 1 Fire and 1 Lightning (I feel like this Sasuke is more geared for Mono Fire then Fire Lightning). Anywho sorry for the huge wall of text and thank you once again for your contribution to our community. :) - Infinite_Tsukuyomi

I'm glad that you enjoy our articles!As for your questions:First Question: I am guessing you're refering to the part where it would want you to move Sasuke into 2 of your Teams on the Battlefield, due to his effect text increasing the 1 to a 2. In this case, where the game wants you to do an impossible action, you'd just choose between 1 of the 2 Teams and place him there. he would not spawn a phantom copy of himself to occupy the second team.Second Question: That's actually a good point. For some reason, while I was flipping through cards, I passed over Yasaka Magatama due to thinking it was a Jutsu specific to Itachi, when in fact it can be used by anyone who has access to a Susano'o. In this case, it would be a much better choice over Flame Control sword, due to being more useful overall due to the listed users, as well as only costing Fire Chakra, rather than the single akward Lightning Chakra you'd need for Flame Control Sword.

Thanks for your response to my weird question I'm glad you didn't just ignore me. Yes that was the part I was talking about and thats what I figured but when I talked to the people at my locals some thought it might work like those ninjas that can block 2 teams so I figured I asked.Thanks for the confirmation on "Yasaka Magatama" I thought it would be better, but I was trying to make sure I wasn't missing anything lol.Can't wait to see the preview ;) - Infinite_Tsukuyomi